Discover Walla Walla

I would like to say I made up that title, but I didn't.  It is a quote from Ernest Hemingway.

My blog for this month was going to be about hospitality, friendship and wine.  I was going to relate it all to the recent North America Wine Bloggers' Conference that was held at the Marcus Whitman Hotel last month. The WBC10 was a three day event with over 300 wine bloggers and others from the wine industry, all over the world, participating in various events from vineyard and winery tours, food and wine pairings, and even online wine tasting via Twitter.

I was going to tell you all about the wonderful hospitality that Walla Walla extended to the wine bloggers, but I cannot tell you as near as well as a visitor who actually experienced it first hand.  Instead, I am going to share with you highlights from a blog by Joel Vincent, Executive Director/Founder of OpenWine Consortium and one of the organizers for the North America Wine Bloggers' Conference.

At the Safeway up the street from the Marcus Whitman, Allan (WBC organizer) and I stopped by for some sundries and a sandwich.  The woman behind the counter saw Allan's shirt and said "are you with the conference?" to which Allan replied "Yes.  How did you know about the conference?".  "Oh, it was in the local paper and people have been talking about it..." she replied.  Related to this was the moment in the taxi on the way to the airport.  "Are you with the conference?" the driver asked me.  "Yes." I replied. When I told her I was an organizer she went on to thank me for bringing everyone to town and how happy she was for it.

On this point, let me first say that this conference wouldn't even be if it wasn't for Sonoma, the related organizations there, and the Flamingo Hotel and Conference center.  But what is inspiring about this last conference was the total embrace of the entire town of Walla Walla.  I've read online some more about this and what I didn't realize was that the community was truly excited about the conference.  That they saw this as an evolution of Walla Walla into a more wine-based economy.  We were important to this community and they were, as a collective community, completely embracing us.  Not just the hotel and the wineries - every person in the town seemed to know about the conference and were genuinely happy to have us.

This warm embrace by an entire community made me feel inspired because I didn't realize it but I think we really helped the community.  The warm embrace of an entire community and their reasons for it changed how I feel about the conference.  I was heads down working on the network and stuff and didn't partake in too many of the festivities because of that.  In fact, I participated WAY less than I had in the past.  And yet, this was the best experience I've had at any of the conferences at a personal level.

If the Wine Life is all about the experience then Walla Walla is all about the Wine Life.  I truly hope that the "thousand voices booming", as Steve Heimoff (Author and West Coast Editor of Wine Enthusiast magazine) described it in his keynote, rings out to the world that if you want to experience the wine life, you should head to Walla Walla, Washington. Catie, thanks for riding my ass until we came to Walla Walla!

Thank you Joel for believing me and most of all, for believing in Walla Walla.